Mount Auburn Hospital Awards $100,000 in Community Grants to Five Local Organizations

Cambridge, Mass. – As part of its long-standing commitment to the health of the residents of Cambridge and the surrounding community, Mount Auburn Hospital has awarded $100,000 in grants to five non-profit organizations that serve populations which face health inequities.

The grants are part of Mount Auburn’s Community Benefits Program and are intended to support programs that address community health priorities and meaningfully impact populations and community members within the Mount Auburn service area. The focus populations were determined based on Mount Auburn Hospital’s most recent Community Health Needs Assessment and include:

• Youth and adolescents
• Older adults
• Low-resource individuals and families
• Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, and Queer (LGBTQ) individuals
• Racially, ethnically, and linguistically diverse populations

“The health of our community is our primary concern and we are honored to be able to contribute in every way we can,” said Ed Huang, MD, interim president, Mount Auburn Hospital. “We are proud to support these organizations and the important work they are doing to reduce health disparities and inequities for those in our community. We are glad to put resources behind this work to support our shared goal to have a greater impact in the communities we serve.”

Mount Auburn has awarded $20,000 grants to each of the following five organizations, which will be provided over two years:

Housing Corporation of Arlington (HCA)

Eviction and Homelessness Prevention Program
This funding will go toward supporting an integrated set of social services that provide eviction and homelessness prevention, connecting families to vital resources and to help low-income individuals develop as leaders so that they may advocate for themselves and their community. These social services will help to resolve urgent financial, housing, and employment issues through the provision of direct social services and referrals to partner agencies as needed. In order to expand tenant voice HCA will support training for tenants as leaders to facilitate tenant councils. This program lifts up tenant voices to address housing related issues in Arlington by enabling low-resourced tenants to become leaders.

Kingdom Empowerment Center (KEC), Cambridge

We Heal Ourselves with Love and Empowerment (WHOLE)
The mission of the WHOLE program is to provide opportunities to learn and heal in order to improve health outcomes for people of color and faith communities and to bridge the gap and break down barriers to access. This funding will go specifically towards offering two separate group therapy programs. The first is creating a safe space for caregivers to discuss the stresses, challenges, and rewards of providing care for an adult. The second group therapy program is aimed at removing some of the roadblocks to receiving traditional therapy and foster collective healing by offering therapy groups facilitated by Black licensed clinicians. This funding will also support creating a series of community-based panel discussions. This series will provide information, insights and resources on holistic wellness.

More Than Words (MTW), Waltham

Social Enterprise Youth Development Program
More Than Words (MTW) is a nonprofit social enterprise that empowers youth ages 16-24 who are court-involved, in the foster care system, out-of-school, or experiencing homelessness to take charge of their lives by taking charge of a business. The young people in this program earn a job and manage every aspect of the business. This funding will provide job training, youth development programming, intensive case management, education and employment coaching, as well as individual advocacy to young people in Waltham. The education coaching provided helps these high-risk teens stay in school and develop life skills that contribute towards improving high school graduation rates.

Transition House, Cambridge

Trauma-informed Counselors Representing the BIPOC Community
With this funding, Transition House will aim to address expanding access to mental health care for clients and provide clinical supervision and domestic violence training to newer BIPOC clinicians so as to expand the field of trained providers while supporting these clinicians to achieve independent licensure more quickly. This project will enable Transition House to strategically expand capacity to serve more people with culturally appropriate free services, thereby removing barriers for clients and increasing access to services.

Y2Y Network, Cambridge

Strengthening Case Management Program
Y2Y operates a youth-led shelter in Cambridge for young people aged 18-24 experiencing homelessness. When operating at full capacity, Y2Y’s model creates a critical intervention point: getting young adults off the streets, providing stability, and facilitating access to needed resources. This funding will support strengthening the case management team with increased training and increasing case management utilization and outcomes. This funding will also go towards growing community partnerships.

About Mount Auburn Hospital

Mount Auburn Hospital was founded in 1886. A teaching hospital of Harvard Medical School, its mission is to provide clinically excellent care with compassion and to teach students of medicine and the health professions.

Mount Auburn Hospital is a part of Beth Israel Lahey Health, a healthcare system that brings together academic medical centers and teaching hospitals, community and specialty hospitals, more than 4,700 physicians and 39,000 employees in a shared mission to expand access to great care and advance the science and practice of medicine through groundbreaking research and education.